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James Paxton of the Seattle Mariners waits for the manager to take him out of the game after giving up a run in the fifth inning against the Oakland Athletics at Oakland Alameda Coliseum on April 20, 2017 in Oakland, California. Ezra Shaw/Getty Images

James Paxton is like The Hulk if The Hulk was just a little dour all the time and also left-handed.

The Seattle Mariners southpaw from Ladner saw his season-opening scoreless string snapped at 23 innings on Thursday when the Oakland Athletics touched him up for three runs on four hits in the third inning in what became a 9-6 Mariners loss in Oakland.

The 28-year-old ended up going four and one-third innings, allowing five runs on nine hits. He still struck out eight, while walking just one.

Even with that, his ERA for the season is a paltry 1.78. He’ll likely start next Wednesday in Detroit.

Here’s what Paxton told the media afterwards:

That was a great little streak that was going there, but you’re not going to keep something like that going all year long. You’re going to have days like today when I just didn’t have it. But I’ll bounce back next time and be ready to go. It was cool. It was a great way to start the season and hopefully we can start a new streak here.

Paxton’s roll stands a club record to start a season and is the fifth-longest season-opening stint over the past five years by any big-league hurler. Only two active starting pitchers have opened a season with longer runs — Jordan Zimmerman, with 24 and one-third innings for the Tigers last season, and Zack Greinke with 24 in 2009 for the Royals.

The Mariners’ record for scoreless innings at any point in a season is 34 by Mark Langston in 1988. Paxton is now tied for 11th on that list.

Here’s what Seattle manager Scott Servais told the media:

Pax’s stuff was probably as good as it has been. His location and command of his fastball wasn’t maybe quite as good, but his stuff was certainly there. He was throwing hard and had some punchouts, but they had some good at-bats and put the bat on the ball. We didn’t play a particularly clean game with the two errors.

Ryon Healy drives in another run for Oakland and knocks James Paxton out of the game.

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